


Perjured Halcyon

by xuhei



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: I guess its a continuation of Fifty Two, Multi, Soulmate AU, who's the bad guy??? no one knows lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 05:50:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13404786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xuhei/pseuds/xuhei
Summary: You and your soulmate feel the same pain. Emotional, physical; you always have the same scars.“You’ve got to decide what you’re going to do. Yixing or Jongin. You have to pick one of them and you have to stick with it. Don’t ruin two people’s lives today.”





	Perjured Halcyon

**Author's Note:**

> another soulmate au!! I really think that jongin would be the really devoted boyfriend type, but maybe Im wrong. no hate to yixing in this I love him I dont think he's a home wrecker lol

“What, are you in a rush to die?”  

Those were the words that a billionaire hurled at you when you tried to leave him. A billionaire that was unfortunate enough to have the money for funding a search to find their soulmate. A billionaire that was yours. A billionaire named Kim Jongin. 

 “Tell me! I’m  _dying_ to know whether you hate me so much that death is the only way for you to be happy,” he continues with a sour tone, “because if death will make you happier, then I will do it! Or would you rather me be the one who dies? I can arrange that, my lovely. Why don’t you stab me through the heart yourself, huh?” 

 Kim Jongin is drunk and it pains you to have to see him in such a state. Maybe it is too conceited for you to say, but he is enthralled by you. The day you were pulled into his parents’ office and introduced, he fell to his knees and begged you to accept him. You were his soulmate, after all.  

“I don’t want you to die, Jongin.” 

“But you’re not happy now!” he shouts. You’ve grown used to his drunken rages that contrasted his normal attitude so much. Because of his nature, the voice he used to shout was no different to the one he used to tell you he loved you. “Please let me make you happy. All I ever see is you. All I ever need is for you to smile.” 

 Today, his rant was caused by the fact he overheard you on the phone to your friend Jaeda, saying that you wished the soulmate concept didn’t exist. Thus, Jongin felt the need to convince you everything was going to be perfect with him. What you did know was that Jongin would do anything in his unlimited power to make sure you and Jaeda never spoke again. “Jongin, being here with you is making me happy.” 

 His estranged cry that follows your words does pain you. Whilst you don’t love him like he loves you, the years you’ve spent with him have taught you to love him. Yes, you loved him. You were yet to have fallen in love with him.  

 “Please don’t lie to me.” 

 “I love you, Kim Jongin,” you tell him. He looks to you with watery eyes and a smile that could clear storm clouds. “I’m not lying. I told you before that I don’t like the idea of soulmates because it forces you to be with someone. It doesn’t force you to love someone, though. I love you because you are you, Kim Jongin.” 

 All he does in response is cry. His shoulders drop and his head falls down as he sobs, tears falling down his cheeks until you notice him fully showing vulnerability and you know you  _have_ to take him into your arms. For a second you believe that you can actually spend the rest of your life with this man but you are quickly reminded that this is still the Kim Jongin that you despised every passing night he spent with you and shared his dreams with you. 

 There was no denying that you were lucky to have Jongin as a soulmate. He cared for you; he’d give you the moon and the stars if you asked for it. He didn’t mistreat you like some other soulmates did. He told you a story of a friend of his whose soulmate decided to leave one night and now that friend was cooped up with depression.  

 You knew you couldn’t do that to Jongin – you simply could  _not_ leave him.  

 But he had different dreams to you and that basically ruined everything. “I promise you, Jongin. I’m yours forever. We are soulmates and I wouldn’t want to change for the world.” 

 “I love you,” Jongin replies. He’s hurting and it makes you feel bad because he doesn’t deserve this. He has a lot of love to give and you’re not the one that wants it. If you could condition yourself to accept how he was and live with it then you would, but it was near impossible. “I need you in my life and if you leave then I’ll…” 

 He stops. You’ve heard Jongin deliver speeches to thousands before about what new technology his men were creating and how he was going to diversify in the future, yet one look into your eyes and he cracks. It reminds you that he is genuine. Everything he says to you is real. “You’ll what, Jongin?” 

 “I can’t tell you,” Jongin answers swiftly. He turns away from you, eyes solemn and despair surrounding his whole demeanour.  

 “You can, Jongin. You can tell me anything.” 

 Jongin shakes his head. “I can’t. I shouldn’t say this to you. My parents told me not to.” 

 “It doesn’t matter what you want to say. I don’t want you to keep any secrets from me,” you tell him. Your hand moves to his cheeks and you caress the smooth skin that’s still slightly wet from his tears earlier. It is hard to see him cry, you won’t ever deny that. “It’s my job to listen to anything you want to say to me.” 

 There’s a patch of silence as Jongin debates in his own mind whether or not he should say something to you. Though you have an idea as to where he’s going with this, when Jongin is drunk he really does give out his true emotions. That included things he didn’t even know he felt in his sober life. You’d realised that when he decided to tell you the first time he’d been drinking around you that his life would be empty if you were not there.  

 It reminded you just how lonely his life would have been if you didn’t meet him that day. If you’d have turned him down and walked away from the Kim family then Jongin would quite simply have no one. He had his friends of course – Oh Sehun was often in China but sometimes made an appearance and the two did seem to get on well – and his parents – though they were often out of the country and only sent gifts to Jongin in the form of meaningless money.  

 So when he asked you to his company dinners and parties it was because you were the only thing that could get him through it. Your responsibility in his life was above anything else. “If you leave me then I’ll kill myself.” 

 “I won’t leave you,” you reply immediately. Your hand moves from his cheek to his hair that is slightly dishevelled and you smooth the brown ends down as a sign of comfort for him. “Please don’t think that way. You shouldn’t have thoughts like that, you need to find things that make life worth living.” 

 “You’re the only thing that’s worth it.” 

  His lack of positivity leaves you with nothing else to say. You want to say to him that he should stop being so dramatic (because Jongin _is_ drama personified, if you were even allowed to say that), but you were quick to notice how the frown etched on his face reflected just how real he was being. “What about your work, Jongin?” 

 “If you asked me to give it up then I would,” Jongin admits. He refrains from meeting your eyes for a short moment in case he cracks under your gaze, but eventually he looks down to you and you’re able to see the true emotions he’s expressing.  “I’ve told you before. You are my world. I… I have lived every day to find you. If I lose you then I have nothing. If you don’t want me, even if you don’t see me the same way.” 

 You shake your head and lean forward to make sure you have his full attention. “What makes you think I don’t feel the same way?” 

 “Don’t you think that it’s obvious?” Jongin asks.  

 “Kim Jongin, if I didn’t care about you then I wouldn’t still be here with you, I would have left you because it wouldn’t hurt me when you talk about yourself like this,” you tell him. You’d be lying if you said it didn’t hurt you when he told you things like this – even if it was just because you didn’t want him to be hurt because of you. “I’m from a different place as you. Of course I wanted to meet my soulmate but it wasn’t as easy for me. I accepted that… I wasn’t always guaranteed to meet you. I rejected the soulmate system because it meant I would either be forced to hate myself because I never got to meet my perfect match, or I’d be the happiest girl in the world because I met them. I don’t hate you. I hate that there was a chance that you and I wouldn’t have ever met – I hate that I didn’t try to do anything to try and find you.” 

 Jongin sighs in relief. You feel worse now. “Do you mean that?” 

 “I don’t know what I’d do without you, either, Kim Jongin.” 

$$$$ 

 There is a boy sitting on his own in the café that  _should_  be deserted. It’s always deserted when Jongin asks you to meet him here, it was like his own way to make sure that you wouldn’t fall in love with someone else. Sometimes, you’d really wish he just trusted you – but it’s a good reminder that in a situation where you could fall for another, you just might. 

 It wasn’t that you didn’t love Jongin. You had loved him because he loved you, but fallen in love with him? That was another story you could not answer for yet. It had been four years since he first asked you to be his and of course you said yes,  _he’s your soulmate_ , but it had never been a connection that had you craving him every day of your life. He isolated you without meaning to and now all you craved was an escape.  

 So your escape now seems to come in the form of a boy with black hair that’s slightly tousled with the sides shaved, sharp brows and a strong jaw line that makes you question whether Jongin is holding an event for models today. He could be a model, as could Jongin. Possibly he was entering a new career without letting you know.  

 “Hi,” you greet simply. It’s a little informal but the boy in his Armani suit and Rolex watch oddly doesn’t seem to care. You’ve greeted Jongin’s friends in a similar way and the only one who never gets annoyed is Tao – the Chinese boy you’d always tried to sit with at any of the parties Jongin hosted and disappeared for.  

 “Hey,” he answers. There’s a cloud of innocence covering his eyes and it causes you to  _want_ to talk more to him. He seems sweet, his accent is a little off and you notice that he’s definitely not from Seoul – not that you hadn’t realised that when he spoke to you without a snarl or questioning look. “How can I help?” 

 You shake your head at his question that was meant to be open ended. “I’m just waiting for someone. How comes you’re alone down here?” 

 “I’m waiting for someone too,” he tells you. Your eyes flick to his hand and you notice that there’s no ring on his finger, and he doesn’t seem to have any other signs of a girlfriend. You’d ask Jongin if you could borrow his computer at some point to search his name and see if you can find a husband or wife at the company anyway.  

 What you do dully take notice of though is the scar on his cheek that looks pretty deep. It’s followed by another that extends down his neck which you’re sure he’s avoided trying to cover up at all. You’d have to check his medical records too, now. Lucky that Jongin’s parents had access to hospital records all over East Asia. Considering how much you complained, you couldn’t help but find everything about the Kims useful.  

 “I understand. What’s your name?” 

“M-My name?” the boys asks. Your question most certainly caught him off guard. 

 “Yeah,” you reply without hesitation. The boy before you with the black hair that perfectly frames his face and dark eyes that show you he’s got a story to tell you if you can hold onto him. “I haven’t seen you around here before.” 

 He just lets his head fall towards the table, sheepishly letting the blush raise on his cheeks. He’s so different to Kai and it’s intriguing. All you’ve ever known in a boy is Kim Jongin; he’s been yours since his family paid to find you from a completely different land. The day you turned seventeen you’d been presented with a gift from the Kim family who were richer than you could ever imagine, and their gift was one you hadn’t yet been able to give up.  _Yet_. You had considered leaving, you had considered ending everything but the problem laid directly in Kim Jongin himself. If you left then you’d lose your everything. 

 “It’s Yixing. Zhang Yixing.” 

 You nod your head at Yixing’s response. His accent has your knees shaking from his every word, anticipating what he will say to you next, but you’re curious as to why the Chinese boy is sitting down in the café on the bottom floor of Kai’s building. “Did Kai bring you in from China for his new takeover?” 

 “Actually, I’m on Zitao’s team in HR. We both worked together when we were younger so he asked if I could join now since they were recruiting.” 

 Jongin usually tells you everything that is happening in his business regardless of whether or not you actually wanted to know. Some days he’d drive you around and talk about how much he hated the head of finances for telling him that he’s  _paid too much_ , then he’d go into a rant when he was lying next to you about how  _Sehun doesn’t know what he’s doing_  but  _he’s my best friend so I can’t get rid of him_. So now you were unsure why he hadn’t mentioned  _Zhang Yixing_ before to you.  

 Is he threatened? If that was the issue then Jongin had made the right call. You were attracted to Yixing like a moth to a flame even if you were just acquainted. It  _almost_  makes you forget that you were meeting Jongin down here soon and he would not be happy if you were down here talking with the employees of his business instead of him. Kim Jongin was jealous and possessive, neither being remotely good.  

 “You’ll have a lot of fun here,” you tell Yixing. He seems to be confused at your abrupt end to the conversation and his eyebrows pull together when he notices you start to push yourself away from the desk. “But if you have any trouble, here’s my number. I’ll make sure to help you out.” 

 Yixing does frown now, and it tugs on your heartstrings almost immediately. You don’t want to leave but you don’t want him to face the wrath of the CEO. “Are you one of the managers around here?” 

 “Just call me, okay?” you mumble softly. Yixing isn’t meant to be offensive with his words but they hit you where it hurts. Instead of continuing you just pass the card with your name and number over the table for Yixing to keep. You can hope he’d call regardless, if he saw the signs. You’d taken off the engagement ring for all intents and purposes like this one.  

 His words mostly hurt because you’d have loved to work. You wanted to gain status through managing and asserting your own independence on the world but Jongin and his family had prohibited you completely from ever doing anything for yourself. It started out with menial tasks, like a maid to give you meals each day but now you didn’t even get to drive yourself anywhere.  

 There were good intentions behind it, you were sure – his parents adored you, they just wanted to do  _everything_ for you. They wanted their son to remain happy and apparently you were the best way of doing exactly that. Like Jongin had said that one night when you told him that all he did for you was too much, he claimed  _but you’re my everything, angel, if you leave then I won’t have anything left – I don’t know what I’ll do to myself._  

 You leave Yixing with that. He watches as you disappear into the distance of the other side of the room, mingling with others that you were sure came from Jongin’s meeting upstairs. He’d be down with them, your name on the tip of his tongue.  

$$$$

You’re sitting outside Jongin’s office when your phone rings. Through the open blinds you see that Jongin _also_ notices your phone ringing and is _so_ quick to check if you’re answering. You catch his eyes and smile, trying to encourage him to pay attention to whatever the men in the room with him were saying.

Jongin was slowly becoming a mess. Slowly, because he’d always been on this road, but also because when he woke up this morning he refused to leave the bed and didn’t want to eat, either. It’s been like this for the past week. Jongin almost sensed that you had spoken with another man who wasn’t one of his best friends.

Saying that, he’d probably just looked at the security tapes of what you were up to in the twenty seconds after he reached the bottom step of the stairs that _you_ weren’t by his side.

An unknown number catches your attention. You remember a dinner with the Kims last year where they told you never to answer calls that you didn’t expect or know who the caller was. Just as Jongin was protective of you, they were protective of their son. They cared for him truly, and you too. They’d treated you like they were you own parents, and sometimes you tried to tell yourself that was because they actually did care about you. Not just about their son who demanded everything.

It’s a mobile number, one from Korea. You stare at it for a few moments before deciding to answer. Jongin wouldn’t be able to hear you from here, but he certainly could see you talking. Somehow you thought it would be easier on him if you didn’t walk away from his line of sight in case he thought you died, or something like that.

“Hello,” you say softly, keeping your face sideways to Jongin so he couldn’t read your lips.

“Hello, I’m hoping I’ve reached the right person,” the voice returns. Scrap that, _Zhang_ _Yixing’s_ voice replies. It almost startles you, but you manage to compose yourself as he says your name and you hum gently. “Oh, I’m glad I got through to you. It’s Yixing, from the other day. We spoke in the café.”

You hum again and hide the smile that pushes on your lips. “I remember. It’s nice to talk to you, Yixing.”

“It’s nice to talk to you too.”

The line falls silent for a moment. You find yourself slowly looking back to Jongin, met by the longing stare of your fiancé. When your eyes meet it shocks him back into reality and he changes his disposition, straightening his back and nodding at what the man to his left says. You’re sure this is important to Jongin, and a part of you wants to stay here and make sure he doesn’t lose his concentration on what he’s doing.

A larger part wants to speak to Yixing.

“Are you finding work that with Zitao is going well?” you ask. By chance that Jongin _still_ wants to lip read your phone calls, this seems far less friendly than you want this to be. “He can be tough. Sometimes you have to put up with him being a bit of an idiot and then he’ll be your best friend.”

Yixing laughs ever so slightly. “You almost sound like you are friends with him.”

“That’s because I am,” you answer. Your mind is filled with a picture of a smile gracing Yixing’s lips, and your own smile begins to form despite the fact you can still feel Jongin’s eyes burning into you. “He’ll deny that the two of us are friends, but last year at the company Halloween party, we both got really drunk and complained about his boss.”

“Kim Kai?” Yixing asks.

You decide not to tell him now that Tao’s boss is also your fiancé. “Yeah, Kai. Tao doesn’t like the guy that much. Says he’s a bit strange.”

“Do you agree?”

“What makes you think I know Kai at all?” you question. You glance back to Jongin and notice how he’s reluctantly looking down at the paperwork in front of him. You can take a breather now. “I said he was Tao’s boss, not mine.”

Yixing waits a moment before he replies. “But you’re sitting outside Kai’s office right now.”

Your eyes immediately look up to try and find the eyes of the man you’ve seen too little. When you laid awake at night with Jongin’s head on your chest, you were trying to imagine Yixing. What he’d be like with is soulmate. If he even had a soulmate.

Loneliness does a lot to people. You found yourself overly attached to those you first met. Luckily for you, Sehun and Tao were the same.

“I’m by the lift.”

He is. Zhang Yixing stands there with his eyes looking directly at you, suit clad on his body and phone to his ear as a smile meets your ever wandering gaze. Your heart almost stops for a second, but you find yourself looking back to Jongin. He’s still engrossed in his papers and you _know_ it’s your time to move.

You had about five minutes before Jongin would realise you’re gone, and then he’d text you and you could tell him you were in the café downstairs waiting for him because you wanted to get a drink. He’d not come down for ten minutes after that, meaning you had fifteen minutes to find out everything you could about Zhang Yixing.

The first thing you learn is that when he’s watching you walk towards him, it’s like the eyes of the gods are focused on you. The second thing is that when he walks beside you, his hand brushes against your own in the most illustrious ways. The third, that he pulls out your chair for you to sit down before he does, making him the only gentleman you’ve ever met that isn’t Jongin.

“Why did you decide to call me?” you ask him.

Yixing freezes, eyes caught with your own as he conjures an answer. “You’re one of the only people who’ve spoken to me whilst I’ve been here. Effectively, Tao and you are the only two people who actually have showed any interest in me despite my knowledge of… business. I guess I want friends.”

“We can be friends,” you tell him, “but you’ll have to tell me more about yourself. Like maybe, where you’re from, how old you are…”

“And whether or not I’m with my soulmate?”

Your eyes widen a little. If he answers that question you assume that you have to as well. “You don’t need to tell me that.”

“I’m from Changsha in China. I’m 26. I studied business with international law at university in Beijing and my family don’t speak to me anymore because I didn’t want to stay with them. Not many people like me because they think I’m either stupid or _strange_. I was picked on a lot in school because I had my own views and I didn’t really believe the way that we live is _right_. I got this scar when I was eleven and I was in a car crash with my grandparents, and in that car crash my soulmate was killed. That’s why I have the scar on my neck, too. What about you?”

“I’m sorry,” you state immediately. Your loss of words is unusual but he’s spilled so much to you that you expect that he wants you two to be friends quicker than you may have guessed. He’s got no soulmate. “About your grandparents, and your soulmate. Your parents too, I guess, and the people who picked on you.”

Yixing shakes his head. “It’s okay. Tell me about you, though. I have a feeling you have something to tell me, too.”

You wonder, just for a moment, whether he can see that you’re in pain. That being with Jongin is slowly driving you to a never ending heartache, even if you do care for him. You love Jongin, you’d do anything for him to be happy too, but it’s not the same as how he feels for you. Yixing makes you understand that. He also makes you worry that perhaps he can sense your feelings.

“I’ve been living in Seoul for four years. I’m 21. I wanted to study at university but never got the chance to. Nothing really happened in my life before I got here, but the past four years have been a pathway to my own version of hell. I have no friends. Well, I do. My only friend that didn’t work here wasn’t allowed to speak to me again because I said I hated the soulmate system. I miss my hometown and I miss the idea of being free. I’m here because my soulmate is here too, and even though he’s my soulmate every day I want to leave more and more. I won’t hurt him like that, even if the way he treats me is wrong.”

“And who is he?”

You raise your eyebrow, Yixing’s question coming far too quickly for your reaction to form. “My soulmate, do you mean?”

“Yes. Your soulmate is Kim Kai, isn’t it?”

It almost makes you feel shameful to nod.

$$$$

Somehow, in the mist of Jongin having the most stressful month of his life with a merger that involved him being sat in an office for almost sixteen hours a day, you’d managed to make your way to the bakery near to where you lived.

Jongin had left four hours ago and told you he’d be home in by twelve over a text an hour later. That left you another hour to do whatever you liked, which did involve running from his staff and catching a taxi into town and telling Jongin to meet you later so he could get away from his own life. A life which he hated as much as you hated it, even if he didn’t want to admit it.

So after he left at 8am, you’d put on some casual clothes and snuck out the backdoor. Your designated driver caught you getting into a taxi and told Jongin which panicked him, but when you told him that you were starting to feel like your home was a prison, he let you go without a question. He even managed to laugh when you told him about the guy on the bus you had seen who looked late to his own wedding.

Jongin was starting to heal. He was starting to trust you more.

All because you were happy.

“Tao, I already told you, it looks _terrible_ ,” you say, commenting on scarf he’d draped around his neck. He had a thing for high fashion, and though you told him to ditch it he refused. He was addicted. “You look like you’ve been possessed by some kind of eighties’ ghost.”

He scoffs at your words, turning to the side and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose further. “I think you’re jealous.”

“What is there to be jealous of? Your terrible attitude or the way you walk so strangely because you bought that strange underwear which completely fucks you in the ass every time you take a step. Tell me, I’m waiting.”

You were also on babysitting duty, not that Jongin and the rest of his company knew. Tao and Sehun had jumped ship and used the fact that they covered for you when Jongin was looking for you, too. So they’d joined you to get lunch and were going to leave just before Jongin got here so he wouldn’t be too mad at them.

“You can’t talk, Sehun, what are those shoes?” you question, scowling at his poorly chosen footwear until Tao was done laughing. They mocked each other too much, but they secretly did like each other.

“Can I not just have lunch in peace, for once?” Sehun asks. He pouts at his half-eaten pastry, then at Tao and then at you, except his pout is called short by _whatever_ is behind you. Sehun’s face falls and he’s immediately standing up behind you with the blankest look on his face. Tao follows suit, and when they both bow you catch the reflection of your very own fiancé in the glass opposite. “Good morning, Jonginssi.”

Before you can turn and say hello to Jongin, he nods his head at Sehun and Tao to sit down and reaches down to you himself, pressing his lips to your temple. “Sorry I’m early. I missed you.”

“Shall we leave?” Tao asks. He’s a little jumpy in his chair, especially since he’s the one who’s stuck sitting next to Jongin. “I know we have loads of stuff to be doing so, we should leave, right?”

Jongin shakes his head. “Why would you leave when you’re half way through lunch? Stay, work can wait for a little while.”

Sehun and Tao have _never_ seen Jongin so calm about them missing work. They’re being treated the same way he treated you. Well, _used_ to treat you, since now he was being _even_ nicer and somehow you were becoming more of a princess than before. “I asked Tao and Sehun to get lunch with me because they’re always complaining about how little they eat for lunch. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” Jongin says. He turns to you with his teeth slightly biting into his bottom lip, eyes sparkling. “I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want anything?”

“I’ll have some coffee, too.”

Jongin looks over to Sehun, and you _swear_ for a moment you think that Sehun might actually be in fear of his elder. You’ve never seen him swallow so hard. “You have your own money, Sehun.”

“But you offered,” Sehun counters. He seems less shy around his best friend now. “I was just saying.”

“I was offering to my beautiful and wonderful fiancé who is the only reason I’m not murdering you for not being at work for the past two days. Because I love her, and not you.”

Sehun looks _almost_ mad at you for what Jongin says, but lets it go as takes a bite of his food. You’re busy watching as Jongin moves towards the counter and ignores the swooning of a group of high schoolers who are whispering about how good looking he is. You’re sure that if you were their age again you’d do the same, especially about someone like Jongin. He was tall, and handsome, and _rich_. At that age, he’d be the perfect guy.

“What did you do to Jongin?” Tao asks you.

You look back to him with wide eyes and furrowed brows. “What do you mean? I haven’t done anything to him.”

“He wasn’t mad at us. You know the last time us three went to get lunch together he got mad at us and threatened to fire Sehun. He hates it when we go somewhere without him and take you with us. Something has changed for him to be so damn… _nice_.”

“I guess he’s happier than usual,” you reply, shrugging.

“And so are you…” Sehun comments. He eyes you carefully, humming to himself. “When we got here you were smiling. I hate to be rude but I’ve not seen you smile in the past year. The last time you smiled in front of me was when we went ice skating and I fell over and broke my arm.”

You roll your eyes at Sehun, shaking your head at his over exaggerative statement. “You didn’t break your arm, you bruised it. And it was funny, the infamous _emotionless_ Oh Sehun was crying for his eomma.”

“So Jongin is happy because you’re happy?” Tao questions. He completely ignores your conversation with Sehun and instead looks over to his boss who is currently paying for his coffee. “That makes sense, you know. Your soulmate’s feel the same pain as you do and get the same scars. If you’re unhappy and your heart hurts, so does Jongin’s. Now you’re happy, you can have a relationship that you always wanted. You know, one like Taemin has with his girlfriend. They are the perfect couple.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you Tao? You’ve met your soulmate, haven’t you?” Sehun teases.

“Yeah, you have too, I heard.”

Neither Tao, nor Sehun, could find their soulmates and it had been an ongoing joke to see who could find their soulmate first. Of course they were fighting over it, and no matter how much money the pair of them invested in finding their soulmates, they never found them. It was kind of sad for them, but all the love they could have invested in their potential soulmate, they were investing in making sure your relationship with Jongin worked out.

Because Sehun was Jongin’s best friend, and Tao was effectively _yours_. So that meant they had to hope you two got the best in the future.

“Why are you happier now, though?” Sehun asks you.

You meet his eyes with a blank expression. You can’t tell them you’re happier because you have a new friend – they’ll ask about who it is and _eventually_ you’ll have to tell them that a colleague of theirs was making you re-evaluate everything in the world. “I don’t know.”

“Something must have happened for you to feel happier. That doesn’t just happen,” Tao tells you.

“Well nothing did happen. I just am happier, I feel like things are different with Jongin and I. Instead of him being overprotective he’s letting me do things for myself and I feel like he’s more of my boyfriend than my guardian,” you answer. Of course this all happened after you met Yixing, but you could play it off as a cycle of constant growth between the two of you. “Can’t you just be happy that the two of us are better now than we were before, and I’m the reason you’re being able to skip work and not be murdered?”

Sehun rolls his eyes and Tao equally diminishes your work, the pair of them pulling out their phones when Jongin returns to sit beside you. He places his coffee on the table, followed by his phone and wallet, and then places his hand on your own as he sends a smile towards you.

Jongin has changed, far too much for it not to be unnoticeable anymore. If he knew why your heart wasn’t hurting anymore, why _his_ heart wasn’t hurting, then things may be different. For now you can live with the negative moral reflection so that Jongin is happy. That’s what you always wanted to do.

“I love you,” Jongin says softly, resting his head on your shoulder. You watch him closely, noticing how his skin is rather pale and eyes a little red. When you say the words back to him, he sighs and shuts his eyes, letting his body _finally_ relax. Tao and Sehun are quick to take pictures of you two like this, the smile that’s resting on your lips, barely visible, but you’re plagued by the thought of Yixing. “I’m glad you’re happy now.”

$$$$

You’re catching up on a new drama when you get a call from Yixing, telling you that he’s free. You’d been texting all day but due to his work he’s only just been able to go home and have some free time. Some previously _alone_ time that he was now going to spend with you.

You’d spent time with Yixing before, but never in a space where it was just the two of you. You had always considered inviting him over but there was always the worry of Jongin finding out. If you were honest with him you could just say to Jongin that he was a friend but… would Jongin even believe that? The only reason Jongin didn’t mind Tao and Sehun was because they worked together, and the two of him convinced Jongin that they knew their soulmates (and Jongin would _never_ question this, despite their tendencies to lie).

Regardless, you find yourself at the address Yixing had told you with a shy disposition surrounding you. You had left a note for Jongin saying that you had gone to buy some things for dinner in case he came home early, something which you were going to do when you left here. If you left here, that was.

Yixing opens the door proudly, still wearing his work clothes and not bothering to hide his happiness to you being here. He doesn’t wait for a second to invite you in, taking you through the door and into his main room that was _so_ inviting that you’re sure he’s put some kind of spell on you.

“How are you?” Yixing asks. He stands behind you as you take in everything on display in his living room. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while. Everything’s been so busy at work.”

You hum, turning to him and ignoring the feelings running through your body. “I’m okay, a little tired. I usually get woken up when Jongin comes home in the middle of the night so I guess that— _oh_. I mean, ignore me. You didn’t need to know that.”

“No, don’t worry about it. I expect you to talk about your fiancé, so it’s fine,” Yixing answers.

You can hear it in his voice that he doesn’t _really_ want to speak about Jongin, but you have to. Jongin was the reason you met and Jongin was the one thing stopping you from ever being able to pursue what you _really_ wanted with Yixing. Perhaps your lack of a _normal_ relationship has lead you to think that anyone would be able to give you a better relationship than the one you had with Jongin.

But there was something about Yixing that made you think he could give you the relationship you’d always wanted. The one you envisioned before you met Jongin. Free of soulmates and a forced reason to love someone; just plain _emotions._

“Does it make you uncomfortable?” you ask Yixing. He raises his eyebrow at your question, asking for you to explain further. “I mean, does the fact that I’m engaged to your boss not make you feel uncomfortable with us being… friends?”

Yixing doesn’t answer. Instead he places his hand on the small of your back and invites you to sit down on the couch he’s placed opposite to the TV. He sits next to you, adjusting his tie as he sits down. “Do you love him?”

“I don’t think you should be asking me that.”

“But I am, because I want to know,” Yixing replies. He holds his ground despite the look on your face. “You said to me that you miss the idea of being free, and that you reject the idea of soulmates. If you were that opposed to being with Jongin, you mustn’t love him.”

He’s read you like a book. “I reject the idea of soulmates because it—”

“—makes you fall in love with someone who you might not want to fall in love with, and because not everyone has the chance to meet their soulmate before causing too much pain to the other without it being able to be rectified. I get it.”

“Yeah,” you mumble, “something like that.”

“It’s okay if you don’t love your soulmate. Not everyone does. But you shouldn’t have to be with someone and force yourself to love someone who is completely different to you and isn’t made to be with you, even if they _are_ ,” Yixing says.

You remain emotionless, looking down to your knees. He’s brought you here to ask about Jongin, the one thing you avoided when you were with Yixing. It makes you feel as though your security has been compromised. “I’ll put it this way. I’ve been with Jongin since I was 17 and every day I feel like I’ve missed out on a life I could have had if I never knew him. But I do love him, if I didn’t love him then I’d have left because I didn’t care about him.”

“You don’t love someone just because you care about them.”

“What are you asking me to tell you, Yixing?” you ask him.

“I want you to tell me that you don’t love Jongin,” he says, looking to you with flared nostrils and clenched teeth. His knee bounces ever so slightly. “I’ve seen the way you look at Jongin, you don’t love him like he loves you. It wouldn’t usually matter to me, but you’re the first person I’ve ever wanted to kiss since I found out my soulmate died.”

His forwardness leaves a blush on your cheeks. You’d assumed that your attraction to Yixing was one sided and that the two of you would never _actually_ hit it off together. Not in the way you wanted. Yixing didn’t seem like one to steal someone else’s fiancée, but here you were. You’re sat across from Yixing with a blank look on your face that makes you fear what will happen if you answer this honestly.

“You’re the first person I’ve met that doesn’t like the idea of soulmates,” Yixing tells you, “and I’ve known you for just over a month now, but I won’t lie to you about how I feel. You shouldn’t live with regrets, like the ones that are piling up with your relationship with Kaissi.”

“I haven’t fallen in love with him the same way he has with me,” you admit.

Yixing nods. “I think that you’re brave for pretending to love him back for four years.”

“I’m not brave. I’m stuck in a system of having to love someone. Jongin thinks that it’s legitimate, that your soulmate is the person you _have_ to be with because they’re right for you. He’s so stuck in the idea that if I get the chance to leave him I will, and that’s making me hate him even more. But I don’t hate him enough to ruin him, I don’t hate him enough to leave him.”

“And what would make you leave him?” he asks you.

“If I did actually start to love someone else,” you tell Yixing. It’s the first time you’ve met his eyes and they’re almost intimidating to you. “Jongin _is_ my soulmate, that’s why he knows I can’t love anyone other than him. If I do, he’ll have nothing. He told me once he’d get rid of his business if I asked him to. All I’ve ever known is Jongin. Maybe the relationship I have with him is normal, but I’ll never know. I’ll never fall in love with someone else.”

There’s an airing silence that looms in the air. You’re silent, only because you wanted Yixing to reply and tell you something that will sooth you from being so honest. Though you look to him for some kind of sign that it’s okay, he looks down to the floor with a stern look on his face. It’s not until he looks up to you and swallows hard that your problems seem to disappear.

“What if you fell in love with me?”

$$$$

Somehow you’d convinced Kim Jongin that he shouldn’t have lunch with you today, and instead he should go with Sehun and Tao because they wanted to talk to him about _maybe_ extending their Christmas holiday.

As in, they were both planning a surprise Christmas party and didn’t want Jongin to know about it.

Instead you were going to be joining Zhang Yixing for lunch at a restaurant near to where he lived, and you were going to forget about Jongin for the time you were there so that you could actually have a nice time doing something for once.

Except that wasn’t really working, because you’d been here for ten minutes already and every time Yixing stopped to do something other than talk to you, your mind went straight back to Jongin. Was he okay? Had he listened to what you said about going to meet Tao and Sehun?

Has he worked out yet that you’ve been seeing someone behind his back in the hopes that you’ll find out what it’s like to love someone else?

“You look distracted,” Yixing says. He’s caught you more than once staring down at your phone, just waiting for a text from Jongin saying he’d found your location and was on his way. “Is something the matter?”

You shake your head at his question. “Nothing’s wrong. That thunderstorm last night kept me up.”

“You don’t like thunder?” Yixing asks.

“I don’t mind it,” you say. You hide the laugh at the memory of Jongin begging you not to go back to sleep so he could talk to you and distract himself from the thunder and lightning outside. He was scared of that, not you. “I just couldn’t sleep. Sometimes I get that, you know.”

Yixing hums at your words, agreeing with the feeling even though you’re lying to him, too. You know at the back of your mind that you should at least be honest with one of them – if you’re lying so much to Jongin then it would only be fair to treat Yixing with more candour and at least _try_ to save a normal, decent relationship with someone. You couldn’t keep lying to everyone about things.

“I was actually awake because Jongin couldn’t sleep and I didn’t want to leave him. He acts tough but he’s actually quite weak. He gets scared easily and he finds it hard to sleep some nights, so I stay awake with him.”

Yixing looks up to you with a blank stare. He obviously wasn’t expecting that from you. “You’re a good person. I wouldn’t have done that.”

“He’s my soulmate. It’s what I have to do,” you tell him.

“I wouldn’t do it for someone I didn’t love though,” Yixing says. He’s convinced you don’t love Jongin, and even though you don’t want to believe him, you have a feeling he _knows_. You’ve never _loved_ anyone but Jongin. “You say you don’t care for Kaissi like he cares for you, yet you act so selfless towards him. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something, that’s why you’re here with me.”

Thank god you wouldn’t have to think about Jongin for another second. “What did you want to ask?”

“Truthfully, I wanted to ask a question about you and I. Our relationship together, I suppose. I asked you if you would fall in love with me, and you never really answered me. Would you consider it?” Yixing asks.

You can feel your heart beginning to pace as you sit in silence, unsure of how to answer. Before you’d avoided his question with a subtle laugh and change of topic, saying that you’d have to approach your relationship with Jongin carefully and not push him since you were starting to make improvements. You didn’t want to answer; you didn’t want to mess things up with Yixing, either.

“Let me ask you something else. I want to kiss you, will you let me do that?” Yixing asks you this time, “you don’t have to say yes, but I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I won’t lie, when you spoke to me when we first met I had hoped that you didn’t have a soulmate because I had this _feeling_ about you. I knew you were more like me, that you had the same views as me. You don’t like the idea of having a soulmate and I can help you escape that idea that burdens your life.”

“You like me?”

Yixing nods, laughing at your words. “Is that all you took from what I said?”

“It was the one thing I was hoping you’d say to me, so of course I was going to pick up on that before anything else. If you wanted to kiss me, I’d say yes,” you tell Yixing. He seems surprised at how easily you say yes to him. “I’ve only ever kissed one person. I don’t even know if Jongin is a good kisser.”

“Would you kiss me now, then?”

You just nod once, but that’s enough.

It seems to slip from your mind that anyone in here could know who you are, could know who Jongin is and could know you’re together. It fails to occur to you at all that Yixing is going to kiss you until he actually presses his lips to your own and you feel your body almost _shake_ from the energy and unusual sensation that runs through it.

Yixing’s lips are soft, but they hit you as hard as a brick. The illusion of Jongin being the only one for you is smashed within seconds and you’re left to try and pick up the broken pieces of what you and Jongin once were, when he first knew you and everything was happy, that you’d held together for so long.

Your heart doesn’t hurt though. You don’t feel pain and that means Jongin won’t either. He’ll think that he’s finally making you happy and that… that’s okay. Jongin will feel happier. Everything will be better, even if it’s all based on a lie. As you look up to Yixing who’s standing next to you, abandoning his chair in favour is the best spot to kiss you from, you feel the restraints that stopped you saying what you wanted finally snap.

“I think I could fall in love with you, Yixing.”

“Even with Kaissi not knowing?”

You nod. It feels less shameful now. “He doesn’t have to know. He’ll never know.”

$$$$

“You’re cheating on him, aren’t you?”

Tao’s question strikes you right in the heart. He’s pulled you aside; you’re millimetres from Jongin, yet you aren’t afraid. Maybe this is the easy way out. Maybe Tao will understand what you’re doing even if he’ll never _really_ understand why you’re doing it.

“No,” you answer, shaking your head. You place your hand on Tao’s forearm and shake your head again. “I’m not cheating on him, Tao. I haven’t slept with anyone else.”

“You don’t have to sleep with someone else to cheat on them,” he states.

You’d like to have been honest with Tao, purely for the fact you’ve trusted him with a lot of things over the years. You’ve never told him how you really feel about Jongin but he knows lots about everything else. He’d been the one who you told about all your problems when you didn’t need Jongin to overreact. Tao was your best friend, even if you’d never say that to him.

“I know you don’t. But I want you to know that I’m not sleeping with anyone else. I wouldn’t do that to Jongin.”

But you would kiss one of his employees when things between the two of you were starting to get good again.

“I’m asking you as Jongin’s friend, and as your friend. You’ve both changed, and Jongin only is happy if you’re happy, so I know that he’s acting differently because you’re happier. He’s never been the one who’s made you smile so I want to know who it is that has changed you so much.”

“I am allowed friends, Tao. You know that I’ve always felt lonely, and now I’ve got friends it’s making things better,” you try to tell him. Your words are a little shaky and don’t particularly make sense. You know you’ve failed at convincing him but it doesn’t matter.

“I know what Jongin does to your friends, I’m not stupid.” Tao says your name as though he’s begging for you to tell him the truth, and you’re so close to just saying it. If you can say to him that he’s right, things would be easier. But you don’t think you trust him not to tell Jongin. “Look, I’m giving you one chance to tell me the truth. If you don’t want to tell me that’s your problem, but I can help sort out whatever you’ve gotten yourself into. I care about you, even if I don’t show it. I can sort things out even if all I’m good at is firing people and arguing with Sehun.”

His words hit you in the chest. Your heart pounds a little harder and you peek through the blinds to see if you can catch any glimpse of Jongin. He’s not near, so maybe you can say it. Maybe you can mention his name. “Zhang Yixing.”

“The one I work with?” Tao asks.

You nod.

“What about him?”

“I spoke to him when he started working here and we’ve been out together a few times. His soulmate died in a car crash when he was eleven. I wanted to speak to someone…” your words fall silent as your process what you’re saying. You could trust Tao with this. Just this one thing. “I wanted to know what it was like to be with someone else. Tao, I’ve only ever known Jongin. Yixing is different. He thinks like me. He makes me… happier.”

Tao has a trademark look on his face. Pursed lips, dark eyes. “You’re the girl that he’s gushing about on the phone to his friend in China.”

“He what?”

“Yesterday he called his friend and told him about the girl who he liked, I was standing behind him in the lift when we were leaving. I sometimes think he doesn’t realise I’m Chinese but…” Tao shakes his head, running his fingers through his styled hair and completely ruining its style. “You’re the girl he kissed, too. You _kissed_ him.”

It sounds worse now someone else is saying it. Tao’s bringing the reality back to you and it hurts more than you expected it. As if on cue, you hear Jongin call your name so he can find you – it’s as if he felt the pang of guilt hit your heart like an arrow on fire. You’re straight back to Jongin, your mind plagued with the things he’s told you before. You can’t hurt him because he’ll only hurt himself even more. _Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me_.

“Please don’t tell Jongin,” you say, desperately grasping onto Tao’s forearm so he can’t walk away from you.

“Are you crazy?” he returns, glaring at you. He pulls his arm from your grasp and turns around, shaking his head. “I’m not stupid enough to tell him that. He’ll go mad, he’ll do something we’ll all regret. You know he will, you know how much he cares about you. I asked because I thought I was being stupid and making this all up but… you really are cheating on him. You’re going to leave him.”

“I’m not going to leave him.”

Tao doesn’t turn back to you. He’s got one hand in his blazer pocket and the other is rubbing his eyes, the news he’s heard obviously impacting him more than you expected it to. You find your heart starting to pound, the feeling in your chest becoming too much for you to handle.

You try to grab his shoulders to turn him around, but he doesn’t budge. He’s stronger than you and it’s ruining you, especially when you start to hear Jongin calling you from outside the room again. He knows something is wrong, he must do. You can feel the tears in your eyes beginning to form and the stinging makes your breaths become uneven.

“Tao, please. Listen to me. Please. I’m not going to leave him. I wanted to see what it was like to be in another relationship! It is stupid, I _am_ stupid, but listen to me! I’ve only ever known Jongin and I… I hate it! I hate our relationship. I wanted to know that being with someone else would be no different and that my relationship with Jongin is just as good as it would be with anyone else. I need to know!”

Tao turns slightly. His eyes still burn holes into you and you want to run away and be alone. “Is it different, being with Yixing? Do you hate being with Jongin less now?”

You don’t answer. Your mind is clouded and it’s almost deafening to hear Jongin calling your name. It sinks you down to the bottom level of hell and you want to lash out. You want to hurt yourself for this, you want to feel the pain that Jongin would be in right now if he knew about all of this, but if you ever did that he’d be in twice as much pain.

“Well, does it?” Tao questions again. His voice sounds angry and you’re sure anyone outside can hear him. “Do you want to be with Jongin still?”

A shiver runs down your spine as you shake your head. There’s no other answer. Yixing gives you so much more. He’s more than Jongin will ever be because it’s not _forced_. You don’t have to love him. “I don’t feel like I have to love him. I’m making a choice to.”

“You love him?”

“Not yet,” you answer, “but I can, I will.”

And you know that Tao wants to press into it even more.

His got that look on his face that he has in meetings. When he wants information, he’ll get it. You can see that in his eyes right now but before he can say anything to you, the door opens. You’ve been saved.

By Jongin.

“I was looking for you,” Jongin says, his hand slipping delicately over your back and onto the curve of your hip. You don’t dare look up to him, opting to look at Tao’s shirt instead. “Is something wrong? I heard shouting?”

You look desperately to Tao, catching his eyes with a pleading look, begging him not to tell Jongin. There’s no way in _hell_ he could do this. You can’t shake your head because Jongin would ask more questions, so you just have to _hope_.

“I found out that Sehun is my soulmate.”

“You what?” Jongin’s reaction is your reaction exactly. Your eyes widen as you catch Tao’s eyes again, but don’t speak to alert any suspicion. “Oh Sehun is your soulmate?”

“Why do you think he’s been off work for so long,” Tao says. You don’t even know if he’s lying but you owe him so much for this. “He doesn’t want to see me because he hates me for it. I got my finger caught in his car door and he got the pain and the bruise too. We’re soulmates. That’s all I was talking about. I need to leave.”

You’re sure that Tao purposefully bumps your shoulder when he leaves, making sure you feel the pain he’s just had to inflict on himself to save you.

$$$$

It’s around seven in the morning when you’re woken by the feeling of cold air hitting your face. The sun is shining and you can see clouds through your barely closed curtains. For a moment you feel free, like you can do anything. Walk out into the streets and live a life where you don’t care. Where people are kind and no one works for their own intentions. Where everyone is loved and there’s no forcing of love between two people who have never met.

But you’re reminded of the life you live when Jongin’s arm moves across you and holds your body a little closer, pressing himself into you.

You can hear his steady breath that hits your skin periodically. Jongin doesn’t move much when he’s asleep but today his body is all over the place. Last night his legs were shuffling and he was showing constantly talking in his sleep.

It almost kept you awake, but you managed to zone out when it came to past two am and you were barely able to keep your eyes open. Then flooded in the dream, the one which haunted your dreams each night that you slept.

The choice you’d have to make between them both.

“Are you awake, baby?” Jongin says softly. His words are mumbled against the back of your neck and you hum at the feeling. It’s so good, so _soft_ that you believe it could be something that happens every day from now on. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” you reply, voice barely audible. It’s not often that you spend your mornings with Jongin because you’re usually awake after him, and if not, you’ll ignore him so you don’t have to talk.

He was too _nice_ for you. Too nice _to_ you. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yeah. How about you?” you ask him.

“Good too,” Jongin answers. He pulls his arm back from you, leaving you a little cold with the breeze running over your body. When you decide to turn over so you were on your back, Jongin is staring over at you from his side of the bed and there’s the softest of pouts on his lips. “I dreamt about us, actually.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. “Us?”

“Yes. In the future, once we’re married,” Jongin says. He must have noticed you were cold because he pulls the covers up and spreads them over your body.

You’re engaged, but it seems like he’s scared of touching you. He hesitates to brush a piece of hair back over behind your ear, but he does it eventually. His touch is so soft and he seems so at peace when he’s doing it. You think that maybe you can be nice, too. You’ll act like you do love him.

“What happened in your dream?”

“You want to know?” Jongin questions. His eyes are wide like he doesn’t believe you and it tugs on his heart strings that he’d react like that. You nod slowly, and though you never act like you two are really together, you reach for his hand and you take it gently, caressing his fingers between your own. “Well…we had two kids. A boy and a girl. You were going to take them to school and I was getting ready for work. We were all in the kitchen and it was just…cute. It was all cute.”

It’s Jongin’s dream world, but it somehow brings a smile to your lips. It’s something you could imagine with him, since Jongin was great with kids. One of his employees had to bring his child to work and Jongin had welcomed them with open arms, even paying for their lunch. Jongin wanted kids, and he wanted to have a family more than anything.

“How old were they?” you ask him. Jongin seems surprised by your interest and only raises his eyebrows. “The kids, I mean. _Our_ kids.”

“They were six or seven, maybe. I think they were twins.”

You nod slowly, looking down from Jongin’s eyes, to his lips, and then to his hand which is on your own. You’d never had pillow talk like this before. You wouldn’t have even known that he went to sleep wearing sweats and a plain tee-shirt before this. “How many kids do you want?”

“Two?” Jongin answers.

“I thought maybe three,” you tell him softly, “a girl and two boys. Just so the girl has two brothers to protect her when she’s young. Though I’d like her to be strong and know she can do anything that she wants her to do.”

Jongin’s tanned cheeks are flushed a little. He avoids your eyes for a while until you’re barely able to catch his attention. It’s only when he looks back up to you and presses his body further into the pillow beneath him that he speaks. “I think three is a better number.”

“What about names?”

“Arin, Kino and Inseong,” Jongin states, as though he’s recalled from his memory. He waits for a moment before continuing. “I mean, if you like them. We have a while before we even have to think about starting a family so, we can talk about it more in the future. We have to get married first. We should probably start planning for the wedding before we plan for kids.”

 “Well, when do you want to get married then?” you ask him.

The way he stutters over his words that he’s trying to tell you, as though they’re an excuse for other things he’s said, makes your heart sink a little. You don’t want him to feel nervous talking to you. He’s known you so long but there’s times when he loses all of his confidence because you take it away from him.

And it hurts, sometimes.

Because you can’t give him everything that he’s ever wanted. Now you’re giving him false hope because he’s going to think you consider marrying him as something you’ve always wanted to do.

But you don’t.

You don’t want to marry him.

Not yet.

You’re not in love with him yet.

“I can start organising things if you want me to,” Jongin says. His hand squeezes your own and it sends a shiver down your spine again. “I remember that you said about that hall you liked in the city. I’ll see if I can get things organised and get a date they’ll be free. Are you sure you want me to?”

You nod. “I don’t want to just stay engaged to you forever, Jongin.”

“But I don’t want you to regret marrying me.”

Neither do you. But as much as you tell yourself you don’t have to marry Kim Jongin, you can’t see yourself _ever_ marrying Zhang Yixing.

$$$$

“I like this one,” Yixing says, pointing to the glass case. His finger slides over to a white gold neckless with a plain chain and simple charm, a diamond made in the heart of a shape. “I think that it will look nice on you.”

You feel your cheeks become a little hot, but you can’t answer him. Your mind is all over the place, and Yixing pointing out a necklace that Jongin had already bought for you doesn’t help you at all. “It’s nice. I like it.”

“Shall I buy it for you, then?” Yixing questions.

“No, no don’t buy it for me,” you tell him. Your voice is a little shaky but you manage to pull it off as you being a little nervous because of how he acts around you. Yixing almost seems to forget that you and Jongin are _together_. “It’s expensive. I don’t need it.”

You’d have told the exact same thing to Jongin. The problem was, Jongin didn’t ask you if you wanted something, he just gives to you. He never once asked if you wanted something because he was afraid you’d reject it; you’d reject him.

But Jongin knew you well. He knew what things would look nice draped around your neck and placed on your body. He bought you dresses that had a price tag of five figures and wouldn’t even think about it. Five figures in pounds, too. You never wanted to know the price in won because it would worry you as to _how_ he could afford everything.

Well, he was one of the richest men in Korea at this point. In Asia, too. His company was worldwide and he was known in the business world, he just kept out of affairs so the main stream media didn’t particularly care for you. Not that they would, anyway. You weren’t one of those girl group models like Krystal or Irene that Jongin’s friends went on about.

He never mentioned them, though. He didn’t care about the main stream media in the same way they didn’t care for them.

“Do you think that money is something I worry about?” Yixing asks. He raises an eyebrow and gestures for a member of staff to come over.

You shake your head, but aren’t able to give your view. You can’t tell him you already have it and ruin his spirits, but you can’t turn him down after saying that it’s nice. Not now a lady who is gushing to Yixing about how good it would look on you, too.

“Would you like to try it on?” she asks you. She’s a little older, she has seen this all before.

“Maybe we should look at something other than necklaces,” you suggest. Your eyes immediately go to the rings on the other side and you realise that this could become a little awkward. “I bent my other ring, I should buy one for myself to replace it.”

Yixing laughs at your words and immediately places his hand on the curve of your waist. He stands closer to you and his lips are so _so_ close to the back of your neck that a shiver runs down your spine. “I’ll buy it for you. It’s fine.”

“We actually have a beautiful ring that has just come in,” the lady tells you. Her tone is happy even though you’re anything _but_. You want to show Yixing affection but this is too _Jongin_ for you. He doesn’t need to buy you things. He just needs to _love_ you.

She takes you to the ring she’s talking about, and you’re immediately drawn to it. It’s silver, covered in diamonds. She must think you’re rich because of what you’re wearing. Light pink overcoat and white dress with some of those expensive shoes you cared so little for. Yixing’s wearing an orange polo neck with a black blazer. You look like one of those luxury couples that own an Instagram and seven cars.

But the ring is beyond anything you expected. It has two bows made out of diamonds either side of the middle piece. You don’t _want_ to look at the price but you have to. Almost forty-thousand pounds.

“One of our regular clients came here yesterday and bought this yesterday,” she tells you. Her lips are curled into a smile as she talks and you’re drawn to how tight Yixing’s fingers are on your skin. “He bought this yesterday for his girlfriend. Or, fiancé. I never know. He always buys things for her in here. But I think this would look wonderful on you.”

You hum, but you know you have to turn away from it. “It’s a little too much, I think. But it is beautiful.”

“It’s not too much,” Yixing says. He nods again at the ring and sends you a smile. “Do you want to try it on?”

Though you look up to Yixing and shake your head, he insists. He wants you to do it, it’s like he wants you to make a choice between him and Jongin.

Because if Jongin gave you the ring and so did Yixing, you’re not sure which one you’d go for. At the start it would have been Yixing but Jongin is changing. Jongin is easier to be with and you couldn’t walk away. Not without a goodbye. Not unless you were losing Yixing, too.

Even if you wanted to accept that things with Jongin were better, they wouldn’t _really_ be better if Yixing is gone. When Yixing is gone, so is the perfect relationship you want with Jongin.

“I’ll leave it,” you tell him, bowing your head at the lady, “I’ll find something else.”

$$$$

 “Baby, slow down—” 

 You only just take into account what Jongin’s words actually mean. His raspy voice hits you to keep you from pinning him down to the ground right then and there.  _Oh_ , he smells so good. The faded out aftershave that he wears for you every day floods your senses for more than it ever has done before. He drives you insane. Maybe that’s the alcohol talking, though. 

 “You’re so…” there is a look of fear on Jongin’s face at your lack of continuation. His form below you that is usually so confident almost fractures at the lack of approval you give him. “…hot. God, Jongin, you’re making me wet just looking at you.” 

 What had really changed? Nothing, effectively. He’d asked you to accompany him to an employee dinner (because  _darling, I always want to show you off_ ) and you’d seen Yixing there and… lost it. It didn’t seem to faze you at first that Jongin was in the room as you spoke to Yixing, it only really hit you when Jongin snaked his arm around your waist and asked if everything was okay. Then it hit you – you’ve got two boys who want you and you can’t decide which one.  

 It’s not like you’ve slept with Yixing. You’d kissed him once, maybe twice, but you wouldn’t go as far as sleeping with him, not yet. That was your only confirmation that Yixing was genuine about you. He hadn’t told you to get lost because  _your fiancé could have me killed with no evidence and no blood on his hands_. 

 So it was a choice. Your beautiful, intelligent soulmate or your beautiful, intelligent lover.  

 Jongin doesn’t speak still. He’s deadly silent as your hand crosses over his pristine white shirt, drifting over the defined muscles underneath. You just can’t resist him. End of. “When I saw you earlier, I just couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like for you to tie me down against the bed and eat me out for days.” 

 He even has the audacity to moan as you grind back onto his dick that you can feel in his suit trousers. It’s more of a whimper, but it’s music to your ears. “F-Fuck, baby, is that what you want me to do?” 

 “Please Kai,” you beg. The words that leave your lips aren’t normal; you don’t often conform with the things Jongin wants you to say.  

 And it visibly affects him. His eyes darken and his hands fall to your hips, grasping your skin until you’re sure that he is leaving bruises on your usually clear body. He loved to be delicate with you, but tonight was different. 

 “Do you know how badly I need you, kitten?” Jongin asks. He tries to sit up as best he can but you’re stopping him from making it to ninety degrees. So instead, he brings one had to your chest and drags his fingers under the material on your chest to expose the light blue underwear he’d given you that you wear beneath. “I’ll remind you that you’re mine.” 

It is actually quite ironic that you’re still getting him to join in this façade. Jongin is never like this. Even when he’s annoyed at you, he’d stroke your hair and kiss you so softly it would feel like a caress from a rose, yet now he is the epitome of everything he has ever wanted to be. 

All it took was for you to be with another man.

“I’m yours, Jongin,” you echo his own words as he presses his fingers into your skin. They burn, they make your body ache, but you want it so badly. He’s trying so hard to pull the clasp of your bra without messing up but all it takes is for you to push your hips down onto his own and feel him touch you in the most basic of ways to have him moan. “I need you Jongin. I need you so much. I _want_ you.”

It’s all that he’s ever wanted you to say. That you want him and that you want him all to yourself. Though he may want this to be real, it’s only the alcohol you’ve been addicted to tonight that’s making you say it all. “What do you want me to do to you?”

“Touch me.”

“You can do better than that, princess,” Jongin says. He manages to remove your bra and leave you almost completely exposed to him. The tips of his fingers trail over the skin of your chest and catch your nipples between them, pinching the delicate buds and causing you to whimper, hand falling down onto his chest and grasping at his white shirt. “Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you, and then I’ll do it.”

You manage to make eye contact for a moment. The dark pupils of his cause your hands to shake and mind to go blank. You forget Yixing. You forget that Jongin is _the_ same Jongin you were starting to resent. All you can think about is having him smother you in love and affection.

No. Not love and affection. You just wanted relief.

“Hold me down against the bed and rub your thumb over my clit until I scream,” you tell him, “then use your lips to kiss every part of my body that you love and bite my skin to show everyone I’m yours.”

Jongin hums. He has a smirk on his lips that you have to ignore for your own sanity. He’s driving you insane and even if you’re _drunk_ , this isn’t what you’re usually like around him. Jongin and you haven’t had sex for over a month. He’s always tired and you’re always ‘busy’. Now you’re both yearning for each other like there’s no one left on earth.

He flips your positions so that you’re beneath him, a mumbling mess as he places his lips to your burning skin and presses them so gently down, leaving his scent all over you. His thigh is between your legs and you’re far too aware of how it brushes the tops of your thighs, and thus how it catches your core.

If you could have done it, you’d have pulled him back down and had him take you right there. Where’s the fun in that, though?

And who said you were in charge?

“Is this good?” Jongin asks.

You hum. Your mind is blank and as much as you want to tell him and praise him for his actions, you can’t. It’s like you’re dreaming. No, it’s like you’re in sleep paralysis and that demon you try to avoid, _Jongin_ , has finally gotten to you.

“I want to feel you around me,” Jongin states. He brings his head back to your level and abandons the masterpiece of kisses and bites across your collar bones. “Do you know how good you feel around me, princess?”

Another silence falls as Jongin presses his lips to your own. It’s sloppy. He’s drunk too. He wants to touch you and he’s rushing his movements but you can’t really complain. It’s amazing, how he makes you feel like this. It’s intoxicating.

He bites down on your bottom lip and a moan falls into his mouth, one that shows how much you need him to finish here. You could go all night with him but you’d wanted to have him fuck you since earlier. You’d been _this_ wet since you saw how _hot_ Yixing looked earlier. No, _no_. Since you saw Jongin when you walked down the stairs.

In his black suit and black shirt with his black hair pushed back.

Jongin was wearing a white shirt. His hair’s brown.

“I love you,” he says. His words don’t really touch you like they’re meant to. All you can hear is your heart that’s thumping and your heavy breathing as he moves down your body. He’s mumbling something else, something about how beautiful you are and how much he loves you. You’re not really sure what he’s doing. Your mind is torn again.

Do you want Yixing to be doing this? Is that the problem?

“I thought you wanted to leave me.” It’s Jongin’s voice that’s running through your head but you don’t think he’s actually talking. It’s your mind that’s telling you you’re a bad person. “I know you’re not happy but I want you to be happy and I’ll do _anything_ to make you happy. You know that, don’t you?”

Jongin does what he said he’d do. His thumb brushes your clit lightly at first, but then he evokes more moans from your lips as you cry out his name and reach to your side and twist your fingers into the sheets. His skin is so soft but it’s ruining you. It wrecks you even more when he replaces his thumb with his lip that suck at your sensitive bundle of nerves.

You screw your eyes shut and let your back arch on the bed. It’s so good. He’s so good. Focus on Jongin and what he’s doing. Your Prince, the one who does everything for you. The one you know you should love.

And you do love him, deep down somewhere.

“I want to fuck you so badly,” he whimpers, voice vibrating against your skin. Oh how badly you want to twist your fingers into his soft hair and push him back down until you came all over that beautiful face of his. Even in this state you can remember how good he is with his tongue. “Let me have you, princess. Please.”

His dominating persona is destroyed so quickly. He’s too nice to order you around. He adds please because he thinks you’ll like him more and briefly, you do. The thought crosses your mind that you could do this every day. That you could spend the rest of your life with Kim Jongin and live well.

So you tell him to do it. You pull at his white shirt and get him to remove it, then tell him something that he’d never imagine to leave your mouth. “Fuck me so hard that I can’t walk tomorrow, Kai.”

“Will you love me then?”

He groans, louder than the voice of his that’s in your head because you feel _bad_. He’s turned on just by hearing you want him like this. You can feel how hard he is because his body is still against yours as he fumbles to remove his shirt, which is followed by his trousers and then those designer boxers he’s always wearing.

And dear god, it’s a sight that you feel bad for not loving. His toned chest and tanned skin that looks so beautiful with beads of sweat dripping down it. His trimmed hair and thighs that you want to ride _so_ badly.

They’d think you were crazy to give this all up.

Especially when Jongin reaches for your hand. He holds it so softly as he lines himself up with you, and then he kisses you so gently when he pushes himself into you. Because he loves you so much and he’ll never give you up, not in a million years. Even if you fall in love with someone else, you’re Jongin’s. He knows that even if you weren’t his soulmate he’d have fallen so deeply in love with you that it would scare everyone around him.

He holds you down so effortlessly, his hands pinning your own down against the bed as he rolls his hips into yours and bites down onto your neck. Leaving his mark, that’s what he does, so no one else will touch you.

And he feels so good, honestly.

The way he hits your sweet spot with every thrust into you, as soft and tame as they may be. He’d lose that tameness soon, you know he will. Jongin moves one of his hands from your own so that he can hold your thigh down in a different position, opening you up more for him. It gives you a chance to move your own hand to his hair, tugging on his locks as pleasure oozes from every pore on your body.

It’s getting to you, Jongin’s way of being. How he treats you. How he loves you. You can feel it starting to effect you even more now. Maybe because he’s got you so close to cumming or maybe because you realise you do love him deep down.

 

“Are you close?” he asks. He knows how wet you are, he knows you’re close. He knows that he doesn’t have to give you much to get you to release. There’s a hot sensation all over your body and the rope in your stomach is close to snapping. “Come on, princess. You can cum for Kai.”

You moan his name, tugging onto his hair and bringing his lips back to your own. You’re the sloppy one now, getting everything you can from him, feeling all of his body on your own. It’s making you so numb. All he needs to do is rub your clit with his thumb _again_ and you’re a mess.

A whimpering, moaning mess that’s cumming all over him. He doesn’t care about himself. He doesn’t care if he’s not there yet. He only cares about _you_.

$$$$

It’s not often that you’re left alone with Oh Sehun himself. Either Tao or Jongin is with the two of you and that makes things far less awkward, but here you are. It’s just you and Sehun and you’re having the time of your life forgetting everything around you.

“I just can’t believe _he’s_ my soulmate,” Sehun says. He takes a sip from the straw in his bubble tea and groans. “Of everyone I know. Why did it have to be Huang Zitao? I’d rather have you as a soulmate. Well, I wouldn’t want to deal with Jongin, but you know what I mean. It’s just… _ugh_. Even that kid on in the café is better looking.”

You raise your eyebrow. “I’d hardly say he’s ugly, Sehun.”

“He’s uglier than me! Why would a ten date an eight?” Sehun questions.

He’s overreacting just like Tao did before. You’d not gotten the chance to talk to Sehun about this whole fiasco yet and now that you were talking about it, Sehun didn’t seem that mad. He seemed to be more surprised because his supressed feelings for Tao had to come out now.

“You just inadvertently called me a ten, Sehun,” you tell him. He glares at you but you smirk regardless, shrugging your shoulders. “You don’t have to be with him, Sehun. You don’t have to date your soulmate. You know that just as well as I do.”

Sehun hums. He takes a moment as he’s looking down at a notification on his phone, but when he looks back up to you there’s curiosity in his eyes. “So you’d be with someone other than Jongin if you got the chance to?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No, but you meant it,” Sehun states. His eyes become a little darker and from across the table he eyes your phone that’s turned over so the screen can’t be seen. He must have realised you didn’t want him seeing any texts you received. “Let’s be real here. You and Jongin aren’t a match made in heaven. You’d be better suited with some random person I picked up on the streets but no one else has the same ideas about not being with their soulmates. If you somehow found someone who didn’t believe in the soulmate system, would you be with them?”

You hide your lies with silence, followed by a shrug. Silence can never be taken as acceptance. Jongin taught you that a long time ago. You hate lying to Sehun, just like you hated lying to Tao. You’ve not told him things before, such as what Jongin said about Sehun when they argued and Jongin would say how useless Sehun could be sometimes, but this was different. It didn’t affect him.

“I’d have to find someone who had the same views as I did before I could ever give you an answer.”

Sehun nods. He picks up his phone and begins to type a text, but before you can think that his questioning is over, he continues. “Tao says that one of his colleagues has the same views as you. Thinks that soulmates are stupid.”

 _Yixing_.

“I only speak with you and Tao,” you answer. Though you keep the innocence on your face, you don’t think he’ll accept it. “Why would I know who Tao works with?”

“I saw you a couple of weeks ago with him. The one that Tao works with.”

You can’t hide it now.

“You two were shopping near to here. I wanted to buy this girl I’m friends with a birthday present and I knew she needed a watch so I went to the find her one, and I saw you both in there looking at the rings and necklaces. I followed you for a bit and I guess that I thought my mind was playing tricks on me but you were both pretty close. _Very_ close.”

Your mouth is dry, so are your words. You don’t have any kind of defence to give him and you certainly don’t have any kind of answer that will make any sense to Sehun. He’s caught you.

“His name is Yixing,” you tell him softly. Sehun’s looking over to you and you’re not sure if it’s because he’s angry or he’s sorry. Sorry that you have to cheat and or angry that you’ve cheated. “His soulmate died. He doesn’t believe in the idea of soulmates, either. We’re… friends.”

“Friends?” Sehun repeats.

Tao and Sehun are completely different people. Tao will keep your secrets because he knows that he can get things out of you by using them against you in the future. Sehun has some loyalty, but he’ll tell people’s secrets so that he can cause problems. Chaos. Trouble.

If you tell Sehun, he could tell Jongin. No, he would tell Jongin. There’s nothing else to it. You can’t imagine a scenario where he would keep this one thing from Jongin, but if you didn’t say anything then he wouldn’t be able to hold it to you.

Nothing good will ever last forever.

“Answer that one for yourself, Sehun.”

$$$$

“Where are you?”

Tao’s question comes as a surprise to you. He’s never so forceful when he speaks to you, he’d rather be rude and make you talk. How he addresses you today though, neglecting a hello as you answer the phone, you know there’s a problem. One you won’t find it easy to control.

“I’m at home,” you tell him. You sit up from where you’re laying on the couch, looking over to the door to make sure the chain lock is on. “What’s the problem?”

Tao’s quiet for a moment. He doesn’t speak, but rather breathes down the phone heavily as though he’s walking. You wait for a moment, and when you hear a door shut he speaks once more. “Jongin knows.”

“Jongin knows what?”

“Jongin knows about you and Yixing, you idiot!”

It took less than a second for the floor to be pulled from underneath you.

“Are you sure?” you ask him. Though you know Tao wouldn’t lie about something like this, the sinking feeling that submerges your entire body is far too much for you to deal with right now. You feel as though this is what has been waiting for you the whole time. You’ve played a dangerous game and you’ve lost. “Has he said something?”

Tao hums. “He fired Yixing this morning, Yixing is leaving for China tonight.”

“What did he say, though?” you ask Tao. It’s frantic, you’re looking for anything that can save you from the situation you’ve put yourself in but it’s not working.

Was it worth it?

You ask yourself a thousand times as Tao rambles about how Jongin came in with a red face and threatened to kill Yixing. How Jongin was crying in his office and how Sehun rushed to tell Tao. How Jongin was screaming your name at the blank walls because he needed you and _only_ you. How the relationship that was just starting to get better was ruined so quickly.

Does it hurt, too?

Jongin must be in so much pain. Imagine him, sitting on his own filled with emotions because he knows you don’t love him. He knows you fell in love with someone else because he gave you the chance. He knows that he’s not the one who’s making you happy and he knows that you’ve betrayed him. He’s failed as a soulmate.

But so have you, haven’t you?

“You’ve got to decide what you’re going to do,” Tao tells you. He takes one deep breath, but it’s cut short by the sound of something being smashed in the distance. “Yixing or Jongin. You have to pick one of them and you have to stick with it. Don’t ruin two people’s lives today.”

And you hear him loud and clear. This is all your fault, for wanting more than you could have.

The car you hate to drive is suddenly your best asset, your fingers shakily pushing the keys into the ignition and your feet pressing on the peddles like you’ve never driven before. There’s tears in your eyes but they don’t fall – you feel like you shouldn’t cry this time. You’ll only be feeling sorry for yourself.

There’s one thing you _can_ do, and when you pull up outside the block of apartments and leave the car you’d scowled at for all these years, you don’t look back. You rush into the building and press at the elevator to get to the floor you want. The last time you were here, you’d done what you promised Jongin you’d never do.

You fell in love with someone else, and he couldn’t have done a thing to stop that.

No money in the world, no _love_ he could give you, would be enough to change how things happened. Jongin was too different and Yixing was too similar. It was like picking between life and death in a world where you didn’t want to live anymore. Yixing was death.

Your hands are shaky still, knocking on his door over and over. You’re not sure if he’s here, you’re not even sure if he’ll answer because of this. He may never want to see you again because he has _no_ life left in the world, either. He’s lost his job and he’s lost his replacement soulmate because their soulmate isn’t yet dead. You can’t replace something that’s not already gone.

But he does open the door. He pulls it open without hesitation and greets you again with that dastardly work suit that you hate so much. You melt straight into his arms.

“I thought you’d already left,” you say, voice muffled by the shoulder you’re pressed into. You don’t want to let go of Yixing but it somehow feels like he’s being dragged away from you. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think he’d find out. I really didn’t.”

Yixing hushes you, his fingers loosely wrapped into your hair and pulling you into him. His fingertips grasp at your skin like it’s sand, and suddenly you feel like the floor is coming back. There’s a chance at the life you wanted. “I wouldn’t leave you.”

“Tao said you’re going back to China.”

“I am,” Yixing tells you. He pulls back slightly but never takes his fingers from you, making sure he can feel you at all times. He swallows his fears and attempts a smile. “I can’t stay here, I was only here to work and I don’t have a job here anymore. But I want you to come with me.”

There’s already too much to process. You’re only just starting to comprehend that Yixing is leaving, but his words hit you hard. They almost send you down to that floor he’s just built for you. “You want me to leave with you?”

“I have a home and you can live with me. Chinese isn’t hard to pick up and you can find a job there easily. We can work things out. I just… I can’t leave knowing that you’re not with me, or that I didn’t at least give you the chance to escape this life. You said it yourself, you’re unhappy. Well you can leave now, you don’t have to see Jongin again. You don’t have to remember this life you’ve had with him.”

“Are you serious?”

Yixing nods. You feel numb.

“But he’s my soulmate.”

Yixing hums, but he doesn’t smile. He doesn’t show any emotion. He knows this is a decision you need to make on your own. “Does that really mean anything?”

$$$$

You’re waiting to check in your bags at the airport. Yixing had found a flight for the two of you at midnight that would take you both to Beijing and you’d go from there. He’d get another job at home and you’d get one too.

You’d get a life you always wanted.

But you couldn’t shake that feeling. Maybe it was because you couldn’t even look at your phone because it was full of missed calls and texts. Not just from Jongin, but from Sehun and Tao too. An apology text from Sehun was the one thing that caught your eye but everything else you had to ignore or you’d start to have doubts.

Those texts and calls were the one thing that was going to stop you from leaving today. That, and the love you felt which was trying to drag you straight back to Kim Jongin.

“Do you want anything?” Yixing asks. He’d found a restaurant in the airport and he was worried about you. He thought you were upset about leaving no matter how much you tried to disagree. “I can get you some ramen, if you like?”

You hum softly, looking over to him with a smile. “That sounds great.”

You don’t even know _why_ your body isn’t yearning to leave already. You’ve wanted to do this all the time. If you didn’t want to leave Jongin then you wouldn’t have cared so much when Yixing asked you to leave with him. You wouldn’t have gone to find him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“It’s been a long day, Yixing,” you answer. There’s a pain to your voice but you try to push it down. “You have to understand. I’m leaving behind everything I know.”

Yixing nods. He offers you a smile to cheer you up as he leaves his seat and heads to the counter to order some food. Him leaving you is the opportunity you get to pull your phone from your pocket and finally take a good look at what you were leaving.

Since he hadn’t left your side all day, and he probably knew you’d have regrets about this.

_(missed call from **Tao** )_

**_Tao_ ** _⤑_ _don’t go MIA now_

**_Tao_ ** _⤑_ _this isn’t funny_

**_Sehun_ ** _⤑_ _please answer your phone we need to talk to you_

_(missed call from **Sehun** )_

**_Sehun_ ** _⤑_ _I didn’t mean to, okay? I shouldn’t have even brought it up. I’m stupid. I’m sorry._

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _are you okay?_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _the housekeeper called and said that she hasn’t seen you in a while_

**_Sehun_ ** _⤑_ _Jongin is going to go insane if you don’t text him back_

**_Sehun_ ** _⤑_ _I’m serious. If you hate me for telling him I get it but Jongin doesn’t deserve this_

_(missed call from **Sehun** )_

_(missed call from **Sehun** )_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _I’m coming home soon, I hope that everything is okay_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _where are you?_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _is something wrong?_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

**_Tao_ ** _⤑_ _Jongin is calling me. Please just tell him you’re okay_

_(missed call from **Tao** )_

_(missed call from **Tao** )_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _is it Yixing?_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _You should have told me. If you told me I could have made things better_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _was I not enough for you?_

_(missed call from **Sehun** )_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _have I ever been good enough for you?_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _I only wanted you to be happy_

**_Tao_ ** _⤑_ _don’t play this game. He’s hurting and you’re making it worse_

_(missed call from **Tao** )_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _does this mean that you’re happy now, with him?_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _I can live with it if you are_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _all I want is for you to be happy and if I have to let you go_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _I will_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

**_Sehun_ ** _⤑_ _you’re cheating on him and you won’t even answer him?_

**_Sehun_ ** _⤑_ _No explanation or anything? Are you really that cold?_

_(missed call from **Sehun** )_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _ive never gone so many hours without speaking with you_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _it hurts so much. It all hurts so much_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _my chest hurts and I feel like im going to die_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _im crying_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _why can’t I stop crying_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _I need you_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _if you come back to me, I can sort things out with you_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _we can be happy_

**_Sehun_ ** _⤑_ _I hope you have a good life with Yixing_

**_Sehun_ ** _⤑_ _and I really did think you thought of me as a friend_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _what has Yixing got that I haven’t?_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _does he make you happy?_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _do you not remember what I said I would do if you left?_

_(missed call from **Jongin** )_

**_Tao_ ** _⤑_ _I get that you want to be happy with Yixing and I would do the same. You know I would. I don’t want to be with Sehun but I’m going to learn to get on with it like you did for all those years with Jongin. But don’t do this to him. Tell him you’re leaving because you know he’s got the shortest fuse. He’ll do things we all regret_

**_Tao_ ** _⤑_ _and he’s a friend of mine, so I care about him. I care about you more though, and if you want to leave then do it. Just tell Jongin that you’re okay_

**_Tao_ ** _⤑_ _call me when you’re in China_

**_Jongin_ ** _⤑_ _I’m sorry._

You’d never expected it to hurt that much.

You sit in silence. Even as Yixing is talking to you, your answers are barely there. Your chest hurts too, just like Jongin’s. You don’t want him to do anything. You don’t want him to be hurt.

Though you can’t make this decision between them both.

It’s not until just past six that you can check your bags in, but even as you’re walking down to the desk you can tell something isn’t right. Yixing has his hand curled around your own and he pulls you along. It’s almost as if you don’t want to go with him. You don’t want to leave yet.

But you do.

You’ve always wanted to leave. Not just Jongin, but this place. It’s so confining and it makes you feel sick. Seoul was never somewhere that you wanted to be. It’s not a place you wanted to settle down in. At least, that’s how you felt when Jongin first was with you. That’s how you felt up until you met Yixing.

Nothing will _ever_ make you feel as sick as the call of your name from the exit doors makes you feel, though.

“You’re not leaving me.” The voice of your _fiancé_ rattles the building; almost everyone is staring. Your mind goes blank as you look back to see his face that’s stained with tears, and his coat that looks completely ruined. His fists are covered in bruises that make you fear what he’s _actually_ done. “I said you’re not leaving me!”

Yixing’s hand on your own tightens, but you’re not holding his hand back. All that you can do is stare over to Jongin in that black jacket and black pair of jeans. His eyes are dark. His skin is pale. Sehun and Tao who trail behind him look indifferent.

“Who do you think you are?” Jongin shouts. He takes a few steps forward before he stops and turns back to Tao, who doesn’t try to stop him. He then continues walking with such confidence that you believe maybe he’ll cause a scene.

Not that he already hasn’t. There’s an entire airport of people watching and security will stop him soon.

But he doesn’t fight you. He stops a few feet from the pair of you and he eyes your hands that are entwined. It’s almost as if he loses his mind for a moment and you can see his heart drop because you’re with Yixing. You’re holding hands with Yixing. It’s too much for him.

“Please don’t leave me,” Jongin begs. He takes another step forward, his eyes directly meeting your own, then falls to his knees in front of you. There’s no shame left in his body. He doesn’t care who’s watching the billionaire boy named Kim Jongin beg for his cheating, _lying_ girlfriend to come back.

Jongin can barely even lift his head up. You don’t know who he’s managed to find you but there’s relief somewhere in your body. Because of that threat, of what he’d do if you left him. It’s running through your mind the entire time and it hurts you. You know Jongin is okay because he’s here with you. He’s not hurting himself.

“Kaissi,” Yixing says softly. Jongin isn’t expecting it – there’s a flash of red that sparks in his eyes as he looks over to Yixing. “I think that you should leave.”

“Leave?” Jongin repeats.

Yixing nods. It’s timid and you can feel his palm sweating. “Don’t embarrass yourself, Kaissi.”

“Don’t talk to me!” Jongin pulls himself up from the floor, his seemingly drunken frame stumbling over towards Yixing. Though he’s barely taller than Yixing he seems to tower over him. Yixing is scared, you already know he is. You’re still relieved. “Do you enjoy stealing other people’s fiancées? Is that fun for you?”

Yixing doesn’t answer. He’s never been one for confrontation. He doesn’t want to argue so instead he takes a step away and brings you with him. That’s never a good idea though. It just aggravates Jongin even more.

So much so that he comes after you.

He follows the pair of you until he’s right in front of Yixing and staring him down.

You’re not sure what’s going through their minds, but somehow Jongin is being pushed from Yixing and then Yixing is being pushed from you and you’re left on your own as the pair make swings at each other.

And Yixing strikes Jongin straight across the mouth, and sends you down to the ground too.

Tao and Sehun are the ones who call your name. You don’t even realise what’s happened until they’re hovering around you and asking if you’re okay. Your senses are overwhelmed by the sting across your face. Jongin’s never hurt. You’ve never been hurt because of him. Now it’s making sense why your knuckles are hurting so much, you thought it was fatigue.

But no, it’s Jongin.

“Can you hear me?” Tao asks. He’s behind you, Sehun is to your side. Jongin is laying on the floor but he’s looking up to you to see if you’re okay and holding his face because he’s in twice as much pain as you are. Physically. Emotionally. Yet he still scrambles to get to his feet and move over to you as Tao tries his best to get you to answer. “What’s wrong? Can you see me?”

You nod, but your senses are going numb. Things are starting to hit you harder than they had been before. The reality of you _leaving_ Jongin is setting in. It only starts to get worse when the very boy wraps his arms around your shoulders and is begging you to forgive him because _Yixing_ punched him and you’re hurting because of it.

_Yixing._

He’s the first thing on your mind. You’re looking for him. Your mind is blank because of him. You can’t find him. All that you can understand is Jongin begging you to take him back and Tao telling Sehun to call someone to get you all.

But you can’t see Yixing.


End file.
